Two dangling plums

How far ahead can the government lock-in High Court appointments? ... Why is Soapy Brandis so unbearably smug? ... How do we solve the problem of refugee boats? ... Procrustes asks ... And answers 

Dyse: first name terms with 19th century equity sages

I WAS going through the pile of newspaper clippings gathering dust from my recent months laid low with gout, and spotted one that spoke to a present maturing into a rapidly approaching future.

The Canberra Times of January 21 in an article on our ultimate tribunal wrote ...

"mean, thin, unwelcoming, low, bristling ... and totally unrelated to any existing element on the High Court."

I knew immediately which member of the court they were referring to, but then discovered that the article was about the new wall around the court's water feature, and its anti-skateboard refinements.

But, it doesn't alter the fact Dyse enters the age of statutory senility on March 1 next year, following hard on the heels of his sometime best man, Uncle William. 

St Michael of Kirby's birthday fell later in March, and he suggested with some grace that he retire as soon as he had handed down the vacation's judgments, to allow a new justice to sit on the cases being heard at the year's commencement.

Will Dyse follow suit, or hang on to the bitter end?

This raises the juicy issue of how far ahead a beleaguered government could exercise its droit de seigneur over this executive plum to appoint not one but two to the High Court.

Virginia Bell was announced in mid-December 2008 to take her place in February 2009. Presumably, once the governor general has signed off on an appointment in executive council, it's all over. 

Or is it?

A precedent for a rampaging Abbott Government to undo incomplete Gillard appointments in the event of a shock collapse of the present government may be seen in the case of the Queensland Senator Glen Sheil in 1977.

After the December election that year, Sheil was sworn in as an executive councillor but, prior to the scheduled swearing-in of the ministry, he publicly cosied up to the then pole cat of the world, the white South Effrikan government.

Prime Minister Fraser then deleted Sheil from the ministry, and Sheil's appointment as an executive councillor without portfolio was terminated on December 22.

If you can be railroaded out of the ExCo, what would stop a new ExCo terminating a recent judicial appointment that had not yet blossomed to commissioning onto the bench?

I see the ghost of Albert Bathurst Piddington, the only nomination to the High never to sit, nodding in gloomy agreement, although Piddington fell on his sword rather than being railroaded in 1913. 

*   *   *

THE thought of life after Dyse fills your correspondent with anticipated nostalgia.

One has only to look at the latest dissent in Williams v Commonwealth of Australia for more of the sepia toned touch:

"If Hugh Cairns and Roundell Palmer, arguing opposite sides of a case, agreed on a principle of equity, that was some indication that that principle was sound."

The first name acquaintance with nineteenth century sages, the name-dropping, the search for legitimacy in a forgotten golden age ... 

*   *   *

Soapy Brandis: Middle East expert

THAT brings us to the identity of the alternative government's appointer-in-chief, George (Soapy) Brandis. 

What joy to watch his performance on QandA last Monday (June 25) - the face of an unmuzzled mastiff.

On hearing Louise Adler's reminiscence about Lang Hancock and Joh Bjelke Petersen's fondness for the late Shah of Iran as a role model of muscular government, Soapy smugly trotted out:

"I'm not sure things have got a lot better in Iran since the days of the Shah." 

It takes a good deal of breezy smugness to totally ignore history and context - as though we need never be bothered about how the CIA in 1953 engineered the overthrow of the, shock, horror, democratically elected government of Iran led by Dr Mossadegh and installed the Shah as despot.

Then PM Churchill leaned on his old pal and newly installed president, Ike Eisenhower, to run a coup blocking Mossadegh's planned nationalisation of what was then called the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company.

The British government's position in AIOC (as shareholder it took 80 percent of the profit from 1913 to 1951), won by parlaying its winning hand against a corrupt Persian autarchy in the early years of the twentieth century, needed shoring-up.

The disgraceful threat by a popularly elected government to throttle back the profit margins of the Brits had to be neutered. What might other oil-rich Middle-East states think if Iran got away with defiance of born-to-rule whities? 

It's all recounted in the recently published Patriot of Persia: Muhammad Mossadegh and a Very British Coup by Christopher de Bellaigue, or if you want something older, try Stephen Kinzer's All the Shah's Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror, 2003.

As the latter title indicates, the lesson of the Middle Eastwas: US imperial might rules, and listen to American rhetoric about freedom and democracy at your peril.

The likes of Soapy Brandis might care to get on top of what is not yet ancient history before floating innuendo as to the moral virtues of their great and good friends. 

*   *   *

Erase Australia's name from the Refugee Convention

YET, Soap was in good form on the night, trumpeting the virtues of the Howard government's refugee blocking techniques, as opposed to the present government's encouragement of drowning. 

When compare Tony Jones interrupted the flow of emollient to point out that the 400 dead from SIEV X had occurred at the time of Howard's legislative efforts, George swatted him down.

No, he insisted, SIEV X was prior to the 2001 legislation.

I was sufficiently  intrigued to check the dates: SIEV X went down on October 22, 2001, but a crucial weapon in the Howard arsenal was the introduction of Temporary Protection Visas, which occurred in November 1999, by way of regulation.

As in life, the best way forward in a debate is to bluster and bully till you get your way.

But, George was concerned to "solve the problem" of refugees coming to the wide brown land.

Your columnist wants to help, and the answer to "the problem" is simple.

In the full glare of publicity, send a couple of ministers to Geneva with orders to erase Australia's name from the Refugee Convention, which it signed in 1954.

No more faux obligation to the Islamic unwashed. Just a simple assertion to the world at large: sod off, we don't like the rest of youse, so don't bother trying to get here. 

At least Brandis is aggressively upfront.

Attorney General Roxon spent the week looking po-faced as to the fate of Australian citizen Assange, while Bob Carr padded away defensively on the line that full consular service had been provided to the besieged bottle blond.

Consular service to detained Australian lawyer Belinda Taylor, in Libya, has included time with the Australian ambassador.

Assange has received text messages from the High Commission in London.

No wonder he's done a runner to the Ecuardoreans.